by Trent Falls
The path took them up the side of a hill, eventually breaking through the trees into higher elevation. The wooded area gave way to a small open area of grass, at the far end of which was a tall grey stone house.
The house really resembled a fortress. Thick grey stone walls reached into the sky, much like an old European castle. As was common on many colony outposts, there were guard towers on top of the fortress. The two towers on the fortress ahead of the Forager were both manned. Julie could see a guard looking out to the sky on a large, likely tripod mounted, rangefinder.
The cart pulled up to the front of the grey stone building. A wide group of steps led up to the main doorway of the structure. Again, there were more armed guards, two total, standing on either side of the door. There were short thick walls at the sides of the doors that the guards could use for cover in an assault.
Rochette got out of the Forager. The soldier next to Julie gestured with a turn of her head for her to get out. Julie walked out on the damp ground and followed Rochette. She was flanked on either side by a brown uniformed soldier. She thought of running for the safety of the forest but was scared she’d be shot. Even if she did get away, where would she go? She had no idea where in the galaxy she was and, certainly, had no idea how to fly a transport shuttle.
The soldiers at the door stood straight up as Rochette passed but neither saluted. The thick grey steel door at the main entry parted. Julie looked over at the open doors to see they were about a foot thick. The inside seemed plain and relatively unfurnished. The foyer inside was long, with stone benches at its side. For some reason, there was a rectangular Koi pond inside the deep foyer.
Julie had seen a lot of soldiers since getting to the planet. She wondered who they belonged to.
“This is going to be your new home for the duration, Miss Stevens.” Rochette announced. His voice echoed in the stone interior of the building. The ground floor of the structure seemed very utilitarian. Some of the openings into the side walls seemed new and were better designed and more livable. Rochette led the group down a spacious flight of stairs, leading into what looked like a plain basement. Julie quickly figured out that the ground floor and underground were actually part of a military fortification. It was an outpost, most likely an EEF outpost. The house had probably been built atop the existing fortification.
“Why are you doing this?” Julie asked aloud to Rochette as she followed him.
“We don’t have to explain.” The merc answered flatly.
They entered into a narrow chamber, a reception area which was protected by a single guard at a desk. The guard stood up immediately as Rochette and his party entered. Beyond the entrance was a very short hallway, about two and a half meters deep, leading to four thick steel detention cell doors. It was the stockade.
“Cell Three.” Rochette instructed the guard on watch.
The guard responded by taking a step back to his workstation and entering in a code sequence into the computer terminal on his desk. He entered a final series of four numbers into the keypad fixed into his desk. The electric magnetic lock for Cell Three released. The thick steel door creaked open.
Julie looked at Rochette somewhat nervously. They were really going to put her in a jail cell. Rochette responded with a blank expression. He pointed to the cell, silently instructing her to get in.
Julie looked back at the cell and hesitated.
“Get in or I’ll put you in.” Rochette noted aloud.
Julie turned back to look at the tough merc. The idea of her confinement didn’t seem so real until she looked at the cell. Reluctantly, Julie took a few steps towards the cell.
The cell door was about four inches thick. A narrow window was set at eye level with bars made of steel, about 1” in diameter set 5” on center. Julie grabbed one as she passed. It was incredibly cold. The cell inside seemed to be fairly comfortable. A real single bed mattress set on an elevated concrete slab was set at one end. There was even a sliding door for a private lavatory and a small shower. Clearly they had considered her comfort – or at least someone’s comfort. Julie guessed the cell might have also been designed for a high-raking prisoner. She wondered if the cell had been constructed during the war.
“I’m sorry we don’t have better accommodations but this is the best we could do at present.” Rochette noted.
Julie, reluctantly, stepped over the threshold into the cell. Rochette and the two guards walked up behind her. The merc shut the jail cell door with a clang. He eyed Julie, who was visibly on the verge of breaking down.
Rochette looked back at Julie through the narrow barred door opening. His cold merc eyes tried to summon up as much compassion as he could, yet his expression was still rather stoic.
“Don’t think of doing anything stupid.” Rochette warned her. “This cell is monitored by a variety of sensors which the duty officer has on his screen at all times.”
“Please, tell me why are you locking me in this damned cell?!?” Julie demanded sternly.
“We need your uncle’s services.” Rochette replied. “He refused us so we’re using you to get him to do what we want him to do.”
“What kind of ‘services’?” Julie winced angrily.
Rochette wasn’t going to answer at first but decided to probe what Julie might know. “Your uncle may have some interesting information locked in his head. Information leading to a lost extraterrestrial civilization.”
Julie stared at Rochette for a moment then shook her head. “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard in my life! Aliens?!? Are you shitting me???”
“We’ll see how it plays out, little girl.” Rochette replied. “Me? I’m paid to do a job. And part of my job is keeping you in this cell. Whether or not we find anything, I still get paid. You be a good girl and you’ll go home. So will your uncle.”
“Well…” Julie struggled to think of something to say. “… let’s hope your employer didn’t waste his money.”
Rochette stared at her through the bars, eventually nodding slightly.
“The duty officer here will see to any of your needs. If you get hungry or thirsty, let him know and we’ll get you something.” Rochette explained to the teenage girl.
Julie offered nothing in response. She simply gave Rochette a cold look.
The former Marine responded with a stoic expression. He then walked away, leaving the stockade with the other armed soldiers. The duty officer returned to his desk and sat down.
Julie set herself down on the solid foam mattress. The eighteen year old girl with straight blonde hair lied down and cried.
Chapter 9
It was late - about midnight. John had locked himself in the study. His excuse was that the strain of Julie’s kidnapping had gotten to him. Outside in his living room were a couple of unwanted guests; Curtis Long and Adam Schultz from the ESF. They had stopped by to baby sit him. They were awaiting further word from Euler, Rochette, or anyone who might be associated with Julie’s kidnapping. Mostly, John figured, they were there to make sure that John himself didn’t do anything rash.
They were right to suspect him.
John had been sure to lock the door. He sat behind the computer monitor, behind a stack of unassociated papers from school. A tall glass of a drink called a tequila slammer was set in front of John. His slammer was made with top shelf tequila and Mountain Dew, a drink he had often mixed for himself when on leave during his time in the Marines.
An open hard case was on the desk; molded for the contours of a GX-9B 9mm pistol. John was in the process of cleaning out the bore of the semiautomatic pistol. It had been a very long time since he had handled a gun, at least a few years. He cursed himself for getting out of practice. Still, every time he fired a gun it reminded him of his old life. It reminded him of the nightmares that still plagued him. Of the images that still made him not want to sleep. He had thought he evolved away from being that man. It was as though he had taken that part of his life off, like an old suit, and hung it on the shelf –
next to the hard case with the GX-9B. The last time he had used the weapon was at a gun range to keep up his skills.
With the bore clean, John was sure to wipe the solvent off his hands. He took another sip of his slammer. He had already had one earlier in the day. He had to be careful. Drinking and gun maintenance didn’t often mix well. John was just at the level of being buzzed. John lubed the rest of the gun lightly and reassembled the weapon. Barrel. Recoil spring and spring guide. Slide. The gun was reassembled in John’s hand as though it were an old habit. His hands remembered the skill seemingly on their own. He pulled the slide back of the unloaded weapon, pulled the trigger, click, slid the slide back again, pulled the trigger, click. The action was smooth. He was confident in the weapon.
He wondered if the ESF agents outside could hear the familiar sound of a firearm being cleaned and tested. John didn’t care. He took another sip of the slammer. Inhaling hard, he took a stacked clip he had loaded with bullets, slapped it into the bottom of the pistol, and drew the slide back again. He put the weapon on safe and sighted the pistol. If he removed the safety and pulled the trigger the gun would discharge, emanating that all too familiar and extremely loud boom. If someone were to stand in front of it as he did so they would likely die.
It wouldn’t have been the first time. He remembered the face of the Xen Scorpion pilot Euler had shot. He remembered the four year old girl holding the teddy bear in the window of the Arkaday Center. He recalled the face of the first Xen he had killed up close.
John ejected the clip from the gun. He pulled the slide back to eject the round that had been chambered, thumbing it back into the clip. He set the weapon back into the molded hard case. He put the full clip into the case next to another one just like it.
He didn’t have much ammunition for the pistol. He wished he had the sense to have bought some prior to his niece’s kidnapping – he thought to himself somewhat sarcastically. John secured the pistol in its foam outline and closed the case.
He took another drink of his tequila slammer. John turned in his chair, taking a second to look at the door and listen. For all he knew, the ESF agents were still watching the baseball game out in his living room. Certain that he was still safe, John turned to the short bookcase behind him. The book case was about waist high, with a glass door display case above it. A pair of cabinet doors enclosed the sides of the case, with its middle section exposed, showing two rows of heavy books.
Despite the fact that e-readers were ubiquitous, many people still kept a certain number of traditionally bound books in their homes. Teachers, especially, often kept a certain amount of physical media, particularly books and texts.
The left side of John’s bookcase, however, hid a tall black case. John pulled the black case from the gap at the side of the cabinet. It was a little smaller than an electric guitar case and was made of a dense durable plastic. The main latch was locked. He turned in his chair and set the larger case down flat on his desk.
John turned the six cam lock of the case to set the proper combination sequence. The contents of the larger case would have gotten him arrested if the men outside were to discover its contents. John rotated the locks on the takedown case and opened the top. There inside were the three disassembled parts of his old M10 assault rifle from the war. Certainly, it was without the M550 mini missile launcher he had typically fixed under the barrel, but it was the same weapon.
Despite the length of time the weapon had been unattended it appeared in relatively good shape. The parts were as he had left them in the case upon leaving Proxima Centauri Five.
The memories of that day came flooding back. His last day as Marshall of New Australia. The last time he had seen Aiyana. If all went well, he’d be seeing her soon again.
He didn’t want to think of it. As much as there was to be said of that situation, as much as he missed Aiyana, he had to keep focused on Julie. She was somewhere out there. She was out there in the night sky, tens or hundreds of light years away.
John picked up the lower receiver by its pistol grip. The barrel and upper receiver were together as one part. He began taking them apart. No doubt, they’d need to be cleaned and lubricated.
He took another sip of his slammer. He wasn’t drunk, though. He could probably still take apart an M10 in his sleep. Dismantling the weapon was strangely therapeutic. It was as though he were dismantling a part of his soul. He was taking apart who he was, who he had become, and putting it back together into what he needed to be.
It helped to think of it in those terms. The man he was during the war wasn’t who he really was. It was who he needed to be. He needed to be hard. He needed to shut off that humane part of his soul, cast his heart in stone, and kill. If he hadn’t been able to do that, he wouldn’t have been able to come home.
Then again, as John saw it, the kid he was when he left Pennsylvania had never come home. He had returned a changed man. For better or worse, he wasn’t the Private John Carn that had enlisted in the EEF Marine Corps over twenty years earlier. That boy was no more. The hardened killer, the face he would never dare show to his loving niece, wasn’t him either. A part of that man, though, lived in the weapon John was dismantling and cleaning.
He looked up at the door. So far, no interest from Long or Schultz.
John had worked hard to try and repair his soul. He could never undo the things he had done. He could never forget the lives he had ended or destroyed. He simply tried to be better.
Being Julie’s adoptive father helped somewhat in that process. Though the idea of being a dad was very alien to him when he returned from Proxima, it was something he had to do. Julie was eight years old when John became her father. It was another role he had no choice but to play. In a way, Julie had helped save his soul. She was pure and innocent. She had an uncharted future where she could do wonderful things. Most parents couldn’t help but live vicariously through their children. John wanted nothing more than for Julie to live a life very different from his own. He had been desperate for her NOT to go to space. Now, she WAS in space –somewhere out in that unknown hell.
John reassembled the upper receiver, placing the firing block into the weapon with its charging handle. He was careful not to make a lot of noise slapping together all of the parts.
John remembered Proxima Centauri. It was the wild west; at least it was when he was a marshal. As a marshal, he had helped to make it better, but not much better.
He connected the upper receiver and barrel to the lower receiver and handle. Once the two were securely locked together, John removed the stock from the case. It was an adjustable modular stock. Upon locking the stock into place John held up the assembled rifle up to his sight. How long had it been since his right eye looked down the sight? The sensation was overwhelming. How many people had he killed upon looking down that sight? He tried not to think about it. He was cognizant enough to know he could trigger his own relapse. He didn’t want to re-experience that hell.
He had put the weapon together again after ten years. He had put it back together as the man he needed to be. He thought of the two ESF agents outside watching baseball on his holovid screen. They were useless monkeys. David Troy, for all his talk, was fairly useless as well. He swore up and down that they were doing all they could to get Julie back but the reality was that the galaxy was a pretty damned big place. Human beings, Terran and Xen alike, had only explored out to a radius of a few hundred light years. In galactic terms, this wasn’t even comparable to walking around one’s house or yard.
No. John needed to be the man he used to be. He needed to go out and find his niece.
John dismantled the M10 again into its three main parts and put it back in his case. He was grateful to see he had three empty clips in the case. He also had about 100 rounds of ammo hidden in a nearby cabinet for the M10. Certainly not a lot, but also not too little.
John closed the hard case and put it back in his safe.
He was ready to move forward with his plan.
&
nbsp; Sunrise. A new day.
John got up, visibly eager to get going. He wore a white A-shirt, black chino shorts, and a pair of tan low-cut combat boots. He carried a black duffel bag out of his room.
The ESF agents were gone. No doubt, they’d be outside following him. He carried the bag into the living room, stopping to grab a tan towel from the closet. The towel was then draped over the bag. John grabbed his sunglasses and keys. He walked quickly to the door to leave. John looked over his shoulder into his condo.
He took a breath. He was good to go.
John shut the door and locked it, setting the external keypad to lock as well. Visibly quick in step, John turned down the outer balcony walkway to the stairs.
Each tenant in John’s building was assigned a garage. John hurried down the stairs to his, fortunate not to encounter any ESF or other law enforcement types. He pressed the access code on the keypad next to the access door to the garage. The lock clicked, allowing John to open the door to enter.
As he flipped the light switch the first thing he noticed was Julie’s red and white bicycle. It was the one she often rode to school. John paused at the sight of it, but only briefly. His yellow Subaru CUV was parked in the garage. Various tools, boxes, and other items were stored in the garage as well. A red kayak was set on the wall on the far side of the garage. The paddles leaned against the wall below the small boat.
John pulled the kayak from the wall and set it on the floor. He then shoved the bag inside the kayak, making sure as best he could that the it was secure. He jammed the towel inside. The paddle was lashed to the side of the boat, as it had been designed to be transported. John then made sure to set the boat aside to allow him clearance to pull his car out.
John got in the vehicle, pressing the assignable remote button on his car’s dashboard to open the garage. The segmented metal door rolled up creakily, allowing the bright summer light to blaze into the dark of the garage. Once the door was open, John pulled his electric car out beyond the threshold and set the vehicle in park again.